Budhaditya Chattopadhyay: Documents a Landscape in Metamorphoses

“Audio Practitioner” Budhaditya Chattopadhyay is drawing attention to the rapid social and geocultural transformation of his native India on his latest album. “Landscape in Metamorphoses”, a 26-minute collection of field recordings on German label Gruenrekorder, documents the stormy environmental changes taking place in Tumbani, “one of the busiest industrial belts at the Bengal-Bihar border”. Recorded between February and April of last year with little more than a simple MD recorder and a binaural microphone, “Landscape in Metamorphoses” aims at delivering both a vivid sonic snapshot and a strong political statement: “The area under attention is mostly inhabited by discreet tribal population who survived with cultivation of land, hunting and a deep-rooted community tradition for many years”, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay explained, “In the last few years the area has been discovered of its stone resources, making way into foundation of small-scale industries for cement and concrete. People and land are used in the industrialization process initiating collective change in the landscape, which is quite a common phenomenon in this developing country. A fertile land of rapid change, tumbani is one of the sites which succumbed to the euphoria over industrial development, improving lifestyle and growth, creating lapses in cultural memory. “